


Guide-line

by Senji (Larilille)



Category: Belgariad/Malloreon Series - David & Leigh Eddings
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:20:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21839596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Larilille/pseuds/Senji
Summary: Before he was Silk Prince Kheldar was still The Guide.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 32
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Guide-line

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thelogicalghost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelogicalghost/gifts).



I first met Belgarath and Lady Polgara when I was ten. Actually I think that I might have encountered Belgarath a few times before — he’s really quite a memorable vagabond when you get down to it, although to be fair to the old man you wouldn’t suspect him of being anything like forty thousand years old. 

It was definitely the first time I encountered Lady Polgara though; she makes quite an impression and it was around that time that I was starting to, as she says, notice that boys and girls are different. In particular girls find some of the social aspects of spying easier, whereas boys tend to have more physical strength, which is good when you’re holding onto the side of a building all night.

Wait, what did you think I meant?

I digress. I’m afraid that I don’t have Ancient Belgarath’s experience as a storyteller so my mind tends to ramble. Yarblek tells me that my mind is a bit like a magpie, getting distracted by shiny things; although Velvet likes to deflate me by saying that that’s a trait which rats also display.

Anyway, I was ten. My father was at home for once, I think he’d just got back from a trip to Tol Vordue, and I was practicing spying on him. In hindsight I’m sure he must have known I was there, but like any good operator he didn’t let on; and let me tell you that they’re right when they say you don’t hear anything good about yourself when you’re eavesdropping. Not that that’s ever stopped me, and besides which at the time I thought he was praising me — something which the oddly familiar elderly gentleman also seemed to agree with.

At that point I was distracted by another voice and I have to admit that I have no idea what the Lady Polgara said because I was both too busy making a mental image of her based on that voice and trying to find a vantage point from which I could observe her.

Fortunately I wasn’t so distracted that I didn’t notice my father saying “I expect young Kheldar will be in the library at this point in the day”; a location which I could just get to ahead of them. As they arrived I had my nose in a scroll — sadly it was in Dalish but noone’s perfect at age 10. 

“Ahh, Kheldar,” my father called out as he opened the Library door, “there’s a couple of people here I’d like you to meet,” and he ushered them in.

“Belgarath, Lady Polgara, this is my son; Kheldar. Kheldar, this is the Eternal Man,” he winked seeing Belgarath wince, “and this is his daughter, the Lady Polgara.”

With that instinct that I was just coming into I turned to her and gave her my best practiced smile, “I hadn’t thought to countenance the rumour that she was the most beautiful woman in creation; but now I see that I was sadly deluded.”

She smiled, perhaps with the faintest hint of a painful memory of long ago, before replying “and I see that not everything they say about you is an exaggeration either, Prince Kheldar.”

At this point I have to admit that I was actually left speechless; caught between wondering what she had heard about me that was true, and what outrageous stories had reached the ears of such an eminent lady.

The two Disciples of Aldur stayed with us for a couple of weeks through the worst of the winter without any obvious purpose to their visit. It didn’t take me long to conclude that they, too, were in the business of information gathering. I picked up more from the two of them in those weeks than I did in my entire first year at the Academy; and I suspect that that made my life in that year much easier.

* * *

About 4 months later; well into the spring even in Boktor; another stranger arrived at our door. My father was away that morning, visiting the Palace I think, and it fell to me to entertain this visitor. He was a brash Nadrak, perhaps five years older than me, and seemed ill at ease. I felt that I should try and help him to relax and knowing a little of Nadrak customs I filched a tankard of ale from the kitchens for him.

He was called Yarblek and was working as an ox-driver for a fur trader called Gallak; but if that had been everything about him then he wouldn’t have been in my father’s house. As the morning progressed, and the kitchens slowly ran out of ale, he started to drop the name of a clerk called “Javelin”. Now I wasn’t certain, but I was fairly sure that was the nickname of the son, Khendon, of a Margrave who worked in the palace.

“So,” I said, an idea coming into my mind, “as I understand it since you’ve shared my ale we’re kind of like brothers for the rest of the day. Is that right?”

“hic,” he replied, “something like that. The details are a bit complicated and as a people we aren’t well known for treating our brothers well…”

“So,” I repeated, “if I do something I really oughtn’t in the service of helping you out can I trust you not to tell anyone what I did?”

“Well at least, hic, until tomorrow?” Yarblek grinned, “although if it’s a good caper then I’m sure I’d be in as much trouble as you if I did tell anyone.”

I grinned back and motioned him to follow me.

My father’s study was a kind of work of art. Papers were piled on every surface; but if you really watched him working then you’d see that he rarely if ever referred to them. Important papers were stored in a locked chest behind his desk; and really important papers were kept in one of maybe two dozen hiding places around the room. I had some idea of his filing system and I found the document I wanted on my third try; after a brief discussion of comparative lock picking and reminding my newly-acquired partner that we wanted to leave my father’s stuff in one piece after we’d finished.

I was a bit surprised to find that Yarblek was acting as an emissary from the King of the Nadraks himself. My father had a copy of a note from Javelin explaining the situation; and at the bottom of the note he had written “to discuss gold mining prospects on the Drasnian side of the border”. 

This was clearly some kind of passphase; and that’s how I found myself trying to explain to my father why he caught me with a Nadrak trying to talk to the Royal Guard about gold mining.

I hear that my son has woken up again, so the story of what happened next, in Yar Nadrak, will have to wait for another time.

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to my beta!


End file.
